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64 Days of Peace and Nonviolence

International Peace Initiatives (IPI) is participating in this wonderful event/series of events this year. On February 23rd, 2015, Dr. Karambu Ringera led her staff, children and students in the launch of their 64 Days of Peace and Nonviolence. IPI joins others around the world to create awareness on the philosophy of attaining peace through nonviolent action as demonstrated by legendary leaders Nelson Mandela, Professor Wangari Maathai, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar E. Chavez, and Mohandas K. Gandhi.

“The 18th Annual Gandhi King Gyatso Season for Nonviolence” is an educational, media and grassroots awareness campaign spanning the January 30th and April 4th memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The “Turning the Global Tide” The Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence (SNV) will commence for the 17th consecutive year on January 30, 2014 in cities across the globe. The annual campaign runs for 64 days and was co-founded in 1998 by Dr. Arun Gandhi and The Association for Global New Thought (AGNT).

The purpose of the campaign is to focus educational and media attention on the philosophy of attaining peace through nonviolent action as demonstrated by legendary leaders Mohandas K. Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar E. Chavez, and President Nelson Mandela, as well as living legends such as His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Using an “omni-local” model of citizen empowerment in more than 900 cities in 67 countries since inception, the program offers tools and training to self-organizing groups that use nonviolent principles and practices to heal conflict in families and communities. The campaign is especially effective in schools and congregations where participants representing diverse age groups, cultures, religions and political ideologies collaborate to identify “local heroes of nonviolence,” and help connect like-minded agencies and initiatives within the same community.

Hundreds of Season for Nonviolence task forces from around the USA and abroad will be invited to participate in new projects, as well as the foundational program, 64 Ways to Practice Nonviolence. With a quotation, affirmation and action for each day of SNV, 64 Ways provides a way for anyone to start making these principles a part of their daily lives.

The Season for Nonviolence has been launched at the United Nations each year from 1998 through 2013. These events have brought forth substantive endorsements and commitments from the former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the U.S. Ambassador to India, Vice President Al Gore, Coretta Scott King, and the Director General of UNESCO on behalf of its Culture of Peace and nonviolence appeal by the Nobel Peace Laureates. The significance of the Season is emphasized by the bookend memorial anniversaries of Gandhi (Jan 30) and Martin Luther King Jr. (April 4), Tibet Uprising Day (March 10), the birthday of Cesar Chavez (March 31), and Freedom Day in South African — a public holiday celebrating the first post-apartheid elections held in 1994 (April 27).

In 2013, His Holiness, the name of the Dalai Lama of Tibet was added to the Gandhi King Gyatso Season for Nonviolence honoring his compassionate and nonviolent leadership in the face of Tibetan human rights oppression. Said Tenzin Tethong, former President of the Dalai Lama Foundation, “… those of us who work for peace should not only ‘follow’ in the footsteps of great peacemakers who have gone before us, but should ‘walk with’ those who still show the way.” This year, the lifetime of the late President Nelson Mandela is celebrated in an SNV Featured Program.

The Association for Global New Thought is the convener and co-founder of SNV under the chairmanship of Michael Bernard Beckwith, D.D. Co-founders are Arun and Sunanda Gandhi of the M.K. Gandhi Institute. Partners are Anthony Chavez, grandson of Cesar Chavez, and Dolores Huerta, contemporary of Chavez and Director of the Dolores Huerta Foundation; Dr. Bernard Lafayette, former executive assistant to Dr. King and Director of the Center for Nonviolence & Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island; Alison Van Dyke, Chairperson of the Temple of Understanding in New York; Dean Lawrence Carter of the MLK Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, and Dr. Richard Deats of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Co-founder and Project Director is Dr. Barbara Fields, Executive Director of the Association for Global New Thought.